


All That is Best of Dark And Bright

by GoldenBadgerGal



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 21:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7591765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenBadgerGal/pseuds/GoldenBadgerGal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan knows they're a tragedy waiting to happen, he just doesn't care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That is Best of Dark And Bright

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Les Mis fanfic and my first time posting to AO3!  
> You'd think as a huge ExR shipper i'd be writing that but for some reason these two captured my attention!  
> I own no rights what-so-ever, i'm just borrowing them briefly - Title taken from Lord Byrons poem "She Walks in Beauty"

The first time they fuck is the same night they meet.  
It's Bastille Day and Eponine throws the craziest party she can, half criminals and half Amis. Jehan wears a sunflower in his hair and Montparnasse has brought absinthe.  
Jehan all but swoons.  
They drink, they dance, Jehan starts calling him "Monty" and Montparnasse calls him "Mon Fleur". They rut against one another in a dark alley before Montparnasse drags them into an abandoned building. Jehan is bent over a table and watches his hands claw across the thick layers of dust. Their voices echo in the room and if anyone can hear his cries he doesn't care. 

_

They don't date, at least not at first.  
Montparnasse appears from shadows and whisks him away to catacombs full of skulls and graveyards. Sometimes they end up in posh little bars and drink and fuck and laugh because Monty makes Jehan feel like he's living in a novel. Montparnasse talks to him about 'The Monk' and 'Carmilla', Jehan talks about 'Darkness' and 'Turn of the Screw' and they both discover a mutual affection for Lovecraft. They recite off the top of their heads and Jehan has never felt more alive. Monty has an air around him of a Byronic Hero and Jehan can feel the fall before the tipping point.

Montparnasse picks him up on a motorbike and drives them to an expensive, dark restaurant where Jehan can hardly see the faces of anyone inside other than Monty, lit by the candles on their table. Monty feeds him by hand as Jehan runs his leg up his calf. By dessert, Jehan is half drunk on wine and half drunk on the atmosphere. Monty stands and before Jehan can question him, feels cold metal slip around his neck. An antique pendant sits on his breastbone, small pressed daisies at the centre. Its sentimental but Montparnasse looks nothing but pleased with himself. It might be, is most likely, a branding but Jehan doesn't care. 

_

Montparnasse is afraid of needles and Jehan doesn't quite understand how he can wax every inch of his body but cannot abide the idea of getting a shot or a tattoo.  
Jehan is not afraid.  
His body becomes a garden, a bouquet of roses and daisies. Grantaire takes care tattooing him and designs each one, his light hands painting them into his skin. The Amis have a rose each on his collarbones and no-one asks about the one above his heart. A black rose sat atop a Gordian-knot of thorns. Jehan knows its foolish and Grantaire knows its for Montparnasse. Grantaire quietly tells him that couples tattoos always end badly, that the needles won't hurt as much as seeing the image when it all ends. But Montparnasse is more than a lover. Montparnasse is an experience; the tragic love of his life. The one that would fill a novel, the one that would scar him and leave him smiling. It might be foolish, but he doesn't care. 

_

"Is this all I am to you, parchment?" Montparnasse sighs, one hand pillowing his head as the other combs through Jehan's hair, his chest covered in Jehans cursive. "How cruel, to pour your soul onto my skin. I will be marked by your art, you know. Terribly selfish, Jean. What am I to do, I will become a sonnet."  
"And if I carve my soul on you, what am I? Your heart?" he teases. He perches on his chest, fingers tracing patterns into the scars on his chest.  
"No, nothing so small and insignificant. You are my lungs, filling my breast. You are the oxygen in my blood, filling me, consuming me." He pulls Jehan onto his lap, brushing his fingers over him as Jehan trembles. "You are my blood, the colours in every bruise, spilling over every cut. Every rush of lust, every drop spilled inside of you, every bite, every-"  
He smiles, sharp as Jehan lunges forward to capture his lips. Montparnasse recites poetry like foreplay, words dripping from his tongue with intent. Jehan knows he's drawing blood with his nails, teeth breaking the skin of his lips, but he doesn't care. He doesn't. 

_

Jehan has to share Montparnasse with his boyfriends other love; himself.  
Monty will spend hours in the bathroom and throw fits if he doesn't look the way he wants before they go out. He will spend time each night moisturising and grooming and shining his shoes. He has 3 wardrobes in his own flat and one at Jehan's, all full and all his own. 

"You can't wear stolen clothes, ma fleur. There was a Victorian gang in London, all women, who stole from clothes stores. But they always sold everything so they could buy their own designer clothes. They had the right idea of it."  
The trouble with his vanity is it doesn't just cover his own appearance, it covers everything, even Jehan. He arrives at his flat sometimes to find wrapped boxes of ETRO shirts, all floral and all costing more than Jehan could afford in a lifetime. He receives jewelry, perfumes and cologne. Fresh and dead pressed flowers every day. But his favourite is a platinum fountain pen he finds on his bedside table one morning, two days after he finished off his last biro.  
His vanity is time consuming and Jehan will never understand that level of narcissism, but he doesn't care. 

_

The Amis (read: Enjolras) hate Montparnasse's possessive behaviour. The others look nervous and fume but Ejolras rages.  
Jehan arrives at meetings with fresh bites on his neck and leaves with an arm stretched across his shoulders. At parties, the ones the dandy graces with his attendance, they can be found against the nearest wall, Jehan caged in by Montparnasses arms and the predatory gleam in his eyes. Jehan thrills as he feels his fingers brush his lips and ignores the stares they get. 

Enjolras loudly informs them that Jehan is not a possession and that Mont's behaviour is archaic. In return he gets a sharp smile and the sight of Jehan's hip receiving a new bruise from his grip. Jehan tries to explain but knows it's fruitless to fight when you become one of Enjolras causes.  
In truth, he lives for Mont's actions and knows he only does them because Jehan can take it. Monty knows he isn't as soft and fragile as the world seems to think. Knows that he thrills and trembles when he's grabbed and gives as good as he gets once they're back in their nest. He knows that Jehan loves feeling wanted. Enjolras tells him Montparnasse is wrong for him but he doesn't care. 

_

Jehan wakes up at approximately 03.26 AM.  
He knows this because the banging on the door shoots him out of a dream where he's talking about poetry with Lord Byron over McDonalds.  
He grabs Mont's robe, a silk one which no doubt costs as much as his flat, and wanders to the door. The banging continues, even as he takes the chain off the latch. 

"Hey..."

Before anything, Jehan spots the trail of blood running up the hall and pooling at his boyfriends feet. His hand clutched to his side, his face cut and bruised and a head wound staining his hair with more blood. The next half hour is spent in a blur, his hands shaking at he calls an ambulance, too incensed to listen to Montparnasses protest against hospitals. Then he's leading paramedics up the stairs to where Mont has passed out on their sofa, answering questions he didn't even know he knew the answers too, and hauling himself into the back of an ambulance.  
They take him to surgery and Jehan is left in a hospital corridor with his ears crashing around him. He stumbles and hits the second speed dial on Monts phone after the realisation hits that he is the first. 

"Mont I swear to fuck it is 4 in the fucking morning"  
"Eponine?"  
"Jehan?...Fuck. Where are you?"  
"H-hospital...Oh god Ep I don't know whats happened" he can feel his grip lax and focuses on the sound of her voice.  
"Ok I'm coming right over, don't leave-"  
"He's in surgery"  
"Fucking christ. I'm coming. I'll call around, see if I can find out whats happened."

Azelma keeps her head down and hears everything, and because she knows, Eponine (and on occasion, the police) knows too.  
"He was trying to leave, the stupid fuck" Eponine curses.  
They're stood outside now, Eponine taking long drags from a cigarette as they both shake with cold and frayed nerves.  
"There was a job and he told dad to go fuck himself. Something about not dirtying his hands with dads shit anymore...Boys got him before he even left the house, the bastards"  
"He was trying to quit?" 

He _shouldn't ___have been surprised. He shouldn't be shocked to hear his boyfriend didn't want to be in a gang. Didn't want to hurt people for money anymore. But crime was so much apart of Montparnasse that Jehan couldn't picture him without it lurking in his shadow.  
And oh god the idea that Monty was leaving for _him ___leaves him sick.  
That Monty could be dying on a cold metal table for him is more than he can bear.  
Because isn't this what he asked for? Tragic lovers, doomed from the first, that was what Jehan had looked for. 

__So he closes his eyes and pictures them on those cold Sunday mornings, Monty painting his nails, still sat in his expensive silk pyjamas while Jehan cooks them breakfast singing along to the radio. Giddy Saturday nights before a party when he would braid flowers into his hair while Monty walked around in his leather trousers looking for the perfect shirt. They'd be the same, they'd start being ordinary lovers, with ordinary jobs, living ordinary lives...But god, Jehan didn't care. Not a little bit._ _

____ _

__"I'm not going! I look ridiculous! Can't we just stay in tonight, mon fleur? Just you and me, reading poetry, fucking for hours-"  
"No"  
"Oh for fucks sake Jean, please? I'm begging you"  
"You look glorious"  
"My hair looks like I just ran a marathon through the tropics! I refuse to go"  
"Its your first show, if you don't go i'm pretty sure you're going to end up fired. Fired Monty. Fired from Vogue" With this, he smooths down the textured hair, smiling at the sheer amount of glitter Monty has covered himself with. Black leather and gold were his personal favourites on him, even when his boyfriend was slouched on their bed in a huff. 

__"Serves them right for hiring me in the first place. Who the fuck hires a dandy ex-con as an editor?"  
"Vogue Paris apparently. They'd probably been stalking you to see where you got your wardrobe, "Paris' Best Dressed Rebels", comments about sexy mysterious men and their ginger lovers"  
"Red gold darling, and the laughs on you because I'm stealing that for next months edition." He smirks, wrapping his arms around Jehans hips and peppers kisses onto his naval. "Have I ever told you how edible you look in ETRO? We could fuck before we go, let you mark me up nice and pretty for all those stuffy designers to see" 

__Jehan is tempted. He's never going to get over the rush he gets with Montparnasse. He loves him to the very core of his being. Monty owns his heart in every way. Only now, he knows he owns Montys too.  
He grabs his lapels and quietens him with a kiss, before sauntering off down to their bike. They'll go to the show and Jehan will laugh, watching Mont charm everyone into submission, then they will come home to their apartment and they'll make love for hours before falling asleep in each others arms.  
They're domestic now, have been for the past four years since his surgery, and the Amis still don't trust Monty, and Monty still doesn't like them, but they're in love. And Jehan doesn't care what the world thinks of that. 


End file.
